The U.S. Federal Communications Commission had barred merger talks among telecommunications companies for more than a year as it conducted a $19.8 billion auction of airwaves from broadcasters for wireless use.

Reuters reported in February that SoftBank (sftby)was positioning itself for deal talks with Deutsche Telekom, which owns 64% of T-Mobile, once the auction was out of the way.

Deutsche Telekom (dtegf), which shares rose as much as 3.5% on Friday on the news to a 17-month high of 17.30 euros, declined to comment on the report.

Sprint (s), SoftBank and T-Mobile US were not immediately available for comment outside regular business hours.

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